The Pentagon launched a six-month review of the United States’ military footprint in Europe on 28 July, in what a new analysis describes as likely to be the most consequential reassessment of American force posture on the continent for a generation.
Writing for the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit, John Foreman CBE, who served as UK Defence Attaché in Kyiv from 2008 to 2011 and in Moscow from 2019 to 2022, argues that the significance of the review lies less in headline troop figures than in the division of responsibilities it produces.
Foreman writes that Washington is trying to resolve a strategic dilemma: “how to maintain credible deterrence against Russia while reallocating military resources to prevent Chinese military dominance in the Indo-Pacific, but without undermining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) political cohesion, its centre of gravity.”
The preferred American end state has been described as NATO 3.0, under which European allies assume primary responsibility for their conventional defence while the United States concentrates on strategic enablers and deterrence, freeing its forces for use elsewhere, with extended nuclear deterrence continuing. Foreman notes this reflects a Washington assessment that European allies already possess a substantial conventional advantage over Russia.
General Alexus Grynkewich, commander of US European Command, has already warned allies to expect force reductions. Foreman records that EUCOM today comprises more than 80,000 military and civilian personnel, around 65,000 of them permanently based in Europe and mainly in Germany, down from a peak of roughly 100,000 immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The analysis sets out the three priority missions Grynkewich has given the Senate Armed Services Committee: securing the strategic approaches to the continental United States, particularly the Atlantic and Arctic; projecting combat power in and beyond Europe; and positioning NATO to defend and deter against external aggression. Foreman argues these overlapping responsibilities are why the review “must extend beyond simplistic arguments about troop numbers” and must instead determine which missions European allies can assume and which continue to require uniquely American capabilities.
He points to recent operations against the Russian shadow fleet, Iranian nuclear facilities and Daesh affiliates in Africa, all of which relied on American bases in Europe and close cooperation with European allies, arguing the review must consider which capabilities have to remain in theatre if the United States is to keep projecting power into neighbouring regions.
Adjustments were already under way before the review was announced. A rotational US Army Brigade Combat Team returned home at the end of 2025 without replacement, and the Pentagon cancelled a planned deployment of another to Poland before President Donald Trump reversed that decision. The administration announced the withdrawal of 5,000 personnel from Germany, which Foreman says was widely interpreted as a response to Berlin’s criticism of American operations against Iran, and cancelled a previous commitment to deploy long-range missiles to Germany periodically, including ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.
That pattern, the analysis argues, creates a planning problem for allies. European governments are “being encouraged to assume greater responsibility for their own defence, but their planning is complicated if US deployments can be announced, cancelled, or reversed with little or no consultation.”
Foreman judges the most likely outcome to be a leaner American presence built around nuclear deterrence, strategic enablers, intelligence, command and control, strategic mobility, rotational deployments and naval, air and special forces, reducing those conventional capabilities European allies could plausibly replace within a decade while preserving those that remain uniquely American. He notes, however, that the cuts may go further, with Trump having mused before the Ankara summit about reducing troop numbers in Europe by a third, which would return force levels to those preceding Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Foreman also observes that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the Ankara summit the review’s results were not predetermined, while linking the review to what he characterised as European resistance to unrestricted American access to air stations during operations against Iran.
Concluding, Foreman writes: “The central question for the review is not how many American troops remain in Europe, but which military functions the US should continue to perform itself and which Europeans must provide for themselves in the future.”
Trump’s rude awakening about NATO members hiding behind US military strength was, in the main part, a much-needed kick up the proverbial. The results have been very interesting, as the military industry in Europe is changing up a gear or two, resulting in an explosion of new technologies to revolutionise the modern battlefront. A storm of new weapon orders are flooding into industry and this has resulted in thousands of new jobs, so thanks, Donald, for once you were right. A rebalance of US forces in Europe is probably long overdue, yet I can’t help thinking it will all fall back to type once Trump is gone.
This has been coming way before Trump. It was driven by Obama first, carried on by Biden. This is where the NATO 2% pledge originated.
The US knows it can’t afford to be in Europe and prevent China dominating the Pacific. And the Pacific is more important in the long run to the US economy
. Plus Western Europe can more easily stand up to Russia than Japan, Australia and South Korea can stand up to China.
…and of course Japan holds the largest whack of US bonds and debt, which is why ironically the US has just stepped in to support the Yen because if it doesn’t US borrowing cost already shooting up thanks to Trump’s missteps will force Japan to sell more and more thus forcing US borrowing costs to become unsustainable. The US is one Ai bubble away from disaster in reality whatever the MAGA propaganda likes to feed the public. BS can’t hide the reality forever as Musk and Oracle are already finding as we see in the South Korean market losses and Bezos just dumped 40 million of Amazon stock so the markets are fragile in reality, despite the superficial confidence. Dangerous times ahead esp as China is so close to taking over as the World’s biggest economy, in some regards it already has. That won’t help confidence when it hits home.
‘Three-quarters of the $36.2 trillion US debt, approximately $27.2 trillion, is held domestically.’
Japan: Holds $1.20 trillion
United Kingdom: Holds $888.5 billion
China: Holds $682.6 billion
True, but not from such a crude baseline and plain language.
yes obama was trying to tell europe. mostly understandable usa pulling out of europe, but the shit talk rhetoric, love ins with putin, bibi etc. it is very sad for america.
Agreed, I-P theater will have primacy, absent outbreak of general warfare in the E-A. Some fail to realize that even during maximum wartime mobilization, the US was compelled to prioritize the European theater at the expense of the Pacific. In the future, a reversal of priority should be anticipated. An existential US v. China conventional conflict should be anticipated, until ultimate resolution w/ an unrestricted nuclear exchange occurs.
… Pacific (during WWII). 🙄
Even though the vast majority oh Americans live along the Atlantic and Europe is by far the US biggest trading partner they have somehow concocted a narrative that the pacific is more important to the US.
He wasn’t the first president to demand this, just the one around when circumstances with Ukraine and China affected matters to straining point and could no longer be ignored. Will it change when Trump is gone, my feeling is that it will probably ease a bit under a more civilised President, foot off the accelerator a little perhaps but fact is (and surely everyone knows it) a Democrat President won’t be able or desirous of rolling the pressure back much on this theme the US is headed only one way regardless of party or political individual in charge.
More significant is that it will only be a matter of time before another extreme right wing President enters power and that individual now that Pandora’s box is open and Presidents are seen to have the power of a Medieval king if they choose to exercise, it’s just a matter of how far they go in doing so or what might have changed to limit it in the short intervening period. But with the World increasingly hostile to US intent and the petrol dollar collapsing and Trump’s disastrous policies increasingly kicking into real pain and with the inevitable public discontent at a US falling further into difficult to BS decline, Europe would be mad to row back to any great degree. Leaders will know that I’m sure, it’s the pressure of placating their own voters and personal short term political survival as ever that’s the unknown factor in decision making during that period. Shaking off Europe’s own economic pressures and shabby growth will be a vital influence.
I believe a lot of the steam generated by Trump was in response to what appeared to be a succession of lax presidential inaction on supposed trade exploitation by foreign powers. Since then, many Americans have witnessed a return of once-proud industry, but the tariffs are hitting the very people Trump needed to seize power. Flash-expensive wars and aggressive tariffs against allies have resulted in serious financial pressure on the average American and there are signs enough is enough. I envisage a period of convalescence before another Trump-type president is voted in.
heard on radio 4 that allowing china into the WTO meant manufacturing job losses in america which have led to the maga movement
I think it could speed up. Vance, Rubio… or even the democrats focusing on domestic issues and social security. This might just the start.
That is a fair point about the political wake-up call, but we must be careful not to confuse a storm of industry orders with actual front-line capability. The European defence industry might be changing gears, but decades of treating defence spending as a peacetime dividend means our supply chains and industrial mass are severely bottlenecked. Placing an order and adding factory jobs looks great on a political press release, but it takes years to turn that paperwork into armoured hulls and artillery stockpiles on the ground. If European political will evaporates the moment the political winds change in Washington, we will be left caught in the middle—with a defence infrastructure that is half-rebuilt and a primary security guarantor that has already moved on.
I think what you are saying has resonance; however, an aggressive Russia fighting a war on the European mainland does have focus and we will see a more proactive response hastened by a US drawdown. Also, we cannot afford to be dilatory, because there is so little time.
The focus is undeniably there now, and you are entirely right that a US drawdown removes any lingering excuse for complacency. The true crisis, as you note, is that we cannot afford to be dilatory because time is the one commodity the MoD cannot buy back with a sudden surge in funding. We can throw billions at the problem and command maximum political focus, but rebuilding heavy industrial tooling, securing raw chemical precursors for munitions, and training specialised aerospace and defence engineers takes years of structural growth. Panic accelerates the paperwork, but it cannot magically force a factory to build an armoured hull or a complex radar system any faster than the physical supply chain allows. We are quite literally racing against the clock
You are so correct about losing skills. The large organisation responsible for building the UK’s heavy armour had matured over many years and produced some of the most durable machines known to man. The likelihood of regaining that industry is very low.
You can rebuild a factory building in twelve months, but rebuilding a multi-generational workforce of heavy armour engineers takes decades. Once that institutional memory is gone, the barrier to re-entry is incredibly high. Challenger 3 isn’t a brand-new sovereign tank; it is a life-extension of an existing fleet precisely because we no longer possess the domestic heavy industrial base to build a successor entirely from scratch.
He’s given it a jump start, provided thousands of jobs to the Europeans and allies… In 10 or 20 years time, if it continues (hoping) then the US defence contractors might suffer lost orders, since their European and Asian allies went for their own kit, not their kit.
Trump has started a shift away from some military hardware, Tempest being just one example. UK, Japan and Italy, with Canada and Germany having observer status, means many Dollars lost.
I doubt the US will share their 6th gen fighter program with allies.
I think they’ll probably treat it the same way they treated the F-22 and not allow export orders. With the glacial pace of the F-35 block upgrades I wouldn’t be surprised if that alone put other nations off of another big, complicated American project.
My own take on this is that its got absolutely nothing to do do with European NATO and what they are, or arn’t spending.
It’s got everything to do with securing expensive raw materials like copper ect, for data storage, AI centers, batteries of all types.
The US now regards these things as important as oil, its armed forces will increasingly be re-oriented to secure supplies, by bringing over countries (with said raw materials) worldwide into the US sphere of influence and developing them as US military/ industrial client states.
It’s already happening, look at CIA operations in Central America, tbe cartels are being targeted, but its got nothing to do with the war on drugs, its about securing mining sites and secure routes of supply.
Basically, its a US strategic industrial pivot.
Why does Europe still even require a U.S. military presence?
Pathetic…and a very dangerous signal of weakness, lack of political will to defend itself…which has resulted in two invasions of Ukraine, over a million casualties from war once more on Continental Europe…and more to come, no end in sight.
A frankly criminal lack of resolve.
America has a major advantage. It’s wars are not fought in America. Wonder how America would feel about forces in Europe if America was in range of Russian tactical weapons? If as many American civilians were being killed in the Iran war as Iranians are dying? How would the American attitude change if Washington or New York were in the firing line?
America’s never been at risk of a war spilling over onto their shores and mid country… Having those Oceans either side of them have meant they’ve never had to experience enemy aircraft overhead. Not even during the Cold War did they truly experience and see it with their own eyes, what it’s like to not control your skies…
Foreman is completely right to highlight that ‘NATO 3.0’ shifts the conventional burden to Europe while Washington focuses on strategic enablers. The glaring issue for the UK is that our entire procurement strategy has been doing the exact opposite. This posture review makes the recent warnings from the 878 Institute report look even more damning. While the MoD is busy slicing away legacy capabilities like the Warrior IFV and shortchanging our Challenger 3 order by 42 hulls to balance immediate spreadsheets, the Pentagon is actively designing a framework where Europe must take primary responsibility for its own conventional self-defence. We are hollowing out our heavy tracked mass at the exact moment our primary security guarantor is telling us they will no longer carry that burden. It is dangerous strategic timing.
But the question for the UK needs to be is that our prime burden, yes we need a deployable army, but for the uk strategic enablers are far more key to our own defence and what we offer a wider Europe.. the British army is a token, pushing 1 division into Europe makes little to no difference to the balance of power it’s a political token and message that says we are there and fighting.. the things we have that Russia worries about is
1) our SSNs
2) our carriers
3) our airforce
4) our SSBNs and nuclear warheads
5) our relations with the US and wider world, it sees our soft power as a fundamental threat to it.
It thinks almost nothing of our army or any army we could realistically put together.. but it’s worrying itself over our new SSBNs and the fact we may build 12 new SSNs.. and a 6th generation fighter…
Which is exactly why I favour the RN, RAF, Intelligence first doctrine.
A ‘Navy/RAF first’ doctrine is a luxury for an isolationist island, not a continental security guarantor. If the line in Europe collapses because every ally prioritised high-end enablers over hard conventional land mass, the Royal Navy and RAF will find themselves fighting from a completely compromised home front. You cannot balance a security architecture by completely removing the foundation.
That argument completely misunderstands what the US is actually demanding from NATO 3.0. The Pentagon wants to hold back its own land mass to focus on the Indo-Pacific, meaning Washington intends to provide the strategic enablers while Europe is expected to provide the heavy conventional mass on the ground. If every major European power adopts an ‘RAF and Royal Navy first’ doctrine, who actually holds the line in Estonia or Poland? An SSN cannot dig in and hold a treeline against an armoured assault. By turning the British Army into a token force, we aren’t complementing US strategy – we are actively undermining it.
With all due respect the British army is a token force, it is the UK participating. Germany and Poland are the land guarantors of NATOs Eastern land boarder because it’s massively easier for them to have those forced deployed close to where they are needed. It costs a massive amount and is far more inefficient for the UK to deploy forces..
And I’m sorry the reality is we are an Atlantic island nation stuck on the north west of the continent.with islands scattered across the Atlantic, we are dependent on the sea that’s what we are. We also provide 50% of Europes nuclear deterrence.. we should not apologise for that.. as for Americas plan, I’m sorry we are not the 52nd state and we are not part of the EU, first and unapologetically we need to ensure we build our defence and offensive that WE require.. yes some of that is working with allies.. but today’s allies may just dump you in the shit tomorrow.. so no first we do what need.. airforce, navy, nuclear, air defence. iSAR and that’s our primary contribution.. then we also turn up on the ground as a participant not as a guarantee.. in the end Germany is geographically, geopolitically far better set to lead on the land security on the eastern border.. the UK is better placed to guarantee Atlantic security and lead in the high north.. France and Italy are better placed to lead the med, Middle East and African security.
We as European nations need to play to our strengths not our weaknesses…
Let’s be a bit blunt here.
“ nuclear deterrence, strategic enablers, intelligence, command and control, strategic mobility”
Europes lack of these that has been “supported” by the US infact it’s been US policy to ensure it controls these.
And with this review it’s still trying to keep that control, essentially because an EU with all that capability does not “need” the US and becomes a strategic competitor not a dependent.
The removal of tactical forces is pure disengagement from an ally as these are not the forces the US needs to manage China.. infact it’s the strategic enablers.
Essentially this is a review about disengagement, but keeping Europe as a base for strategic forward power projection as well as keeping Europe strategically dependent.. if Europe has any sense what so ever it will be building those strategic enablers as quickly as it can and remove all dependence, it can then assert its own dominance and authority.
Side note, Germany wants to create a “Corps Troops Division” which will basically be an entire divisions worth of enablers that can be bolted onto 2-3 NATO Corps to enable them to actually function, even if the Corps has zero German combat troops in it.
That’s actually a pretty huge, there are a lot of European brigades that could be used to create corps level formations with the right European enablers in place.
For sure. It’s still very conceptual though, part of their 2035 force structure (other highlights include a strategic level fires unit, and a second TDF division). Basically a pair of cavalry brigades and then large Artillery, Engineering, Helicopter and Air Defence Brigades which can dish enablers out to Corps as needed seems to be the plan. I hope they pull it off, it’s glue that Europe needs to hold it’s forces together.